Treatments And Technologies We Use To Treat Ankle Sprains
The ultimate key to successful treatment of ankle sprains is working with a team who are willing to take a sufficiently flexible approach, and trial a number of different therapies to see what works best on your specific case.
Low Energy Laser Therapy is the application of specific deeply penetrating light waves to a painful area. Light with a wavelength in the red to near infrared region of the spectrum (660nm–905nm) is generally employed because these wavelengths have the ability to penetrate skin, and soft/hard tissues.
A great many clinical trials have shown this type of treatment has a meaningful effect on pain, inflammation and tissue repair. In our experience people with neck pain often experience immediate improvements in their pain after laser sessions.
Many people suffer with recurrent ankle sprains caused by old unhealed ankle injuries. Naturally, one of the long term repercussions of old injuries is scar tissue. That’s where shockwave therapy comes in.
Shockwave Therapy is a non-surgical – non-drug-based – scientifically approved therapy that is widely used as a pain treatment. There have been literally hundreds of studies that support the use of shockwave therapy for a very wide range of painful complaints.
Shockwave Therapy was originally developed for its application as a non-invasive treatment of kidney stones. We use a gentler form of the same technology to break up deep muscle knots, calcified tendons and tracts of scar tissue. This makes shockwave therapy particularly useful for resolving the fallout from bad sprained ankles. For more information on shockwave therapy visit our shockwave homepage here.
Gait Analysis & Stride Analysis tools are for people who are interested in long term prevention of pain. When the root cause of your pain has been uncovered it takes all the guess-work out of treatment and rehabilitation of pain. Deep insights into our movement patterns are now possible: with the use of cloud based AI machine learning; and complex sensors that go in your shoes while you perform movement tests.This data opens the door to tailored forms of rehabilitation
We believe that all pains have a story to tell and that there are genuine underlying physical issues behind all stubborn pain. In other words, you don’t get sore overnight, and you certainly don’t get chronic pain overnight, unless you have had a real physical issue. Gait Analysis & Stride Analysis are designed to identify these issues.
Orthotics are a tool that have helped millions of people move past exactly the type of stubborn pains that tend to chip away at the fun, freedom, and choice that make life enjoyable.
An averagely active person takes in excess of 3 million steps per year. Modern humans do all this on extremely flat, hard surfaces like concrete, tarmac and paving stones. Hard, flat surfaces are as stressful to our joints and connective tissues as sugar is to our teeth. This is a major part of why we live in an epidemic of lower body pain and degeneration.
Orthotics are a way of protecting us from the lifelong strain concrete and tarmac inflict on our tissues.. The Increased support for the foot that orthotics provide often brings greater ease and freedom to our movements in the long term. The benefits are often felt not only in the feet, ankles, and knees but even in the back and hips.
Most ankles with persistent or recurring pain following a sprain are full of ‘pressure points’ or myofascial trigger points (the sore spots you feel in muscles when you get a deep massage). At Featherston St. Pain Clinic we consider ourselves experts at finding and releasing the most stubborn trigger points. It’s not always fun to have done (we know that ourselves) but boy can it help with persistent ankle pain; when it’s done properly!
Acupuncture can be extremely helpful in the management of many ankle sprains. We don’t approach acupuncture in the traditional way where needles are placed in a wide no.of locations, we focus directly on the area of pain.
Acupuncture aims to promote blood flow, release pressure points in muscle and reduce pain signals. Needles are placed around the area of pain and we generally leave them in for around 10 minutes, depending on your body’s tolerance to them. If acupuncture works for your ankles sprain, you will usually start to feel the benefits within the first 2-3 sessions.
A large number of people suffer with recurrent ankle sprains caused in part by old unhealed injuries. These injuries can come from almost any historical ankle injury,or even hip, knee injuries. Naturally, one of the long term repercussions of old injuries is scar tissue.
Scraping gently in and around the connective tissues and muscle using a blunt scraping tool is the basic method behind how we manage scar tissue in the ankle. Guasha is the old Chinese name for this technique but there are many others from different cultures and there are more modern techniques like Graston Technique. The idea with all of them is to break up and assist with remodeling of microscopic scar tissue adhesions, which are a major cause of ankle sprains.
Percussive movements have been an established component of soft tissue release, massage and even respiratory healthcare for thousands of years, and it is no less effective today. Percussion massage as treatment for ankle spaains generally involves the use of mechanical massage devices. It is designed to reduce muscle tension and promote blood flow within the soft tissues.
Heaps of people find the application of ice packs for the treatment of their ankle sprain can prove to be very beneficial. Ice works by interrupting pain signals within the nerve, stimulates the activity of blood vessels, and reduces both inflammatory and pain chemistry in the soft tissues.
One of the most common questions we get asked is whether heat or ice is better. Nine times out of ten ice is a better option than heat when you have pain. Heat can be a bit of a tricky one because it does often feel soothing at the time. Sometime after heat application however you may have more pain than you might otherwise have had.
The short term use of bracing and taping can be a very useful part of ankle sprain management. Minimising the risk of further tearing in the ankle ligaments is perhaps the most obvious goal of successful ankle sprain treatment.
We are strong advocates of the minimal use of supports, braces and splints for all pains. Modern pain management is all about an early return to full function and weight bearing. The scientific evidence on injury management broadly supports this philosophy.